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derailed34 · January 26th, 2009

First let me say that I have found this forum to be informative, and even cooler, entertaining.

I may be approaching all of these discussions from a slightly different perspective, so I hope you can have a little patience with me.

My organization has quite a few screen printers working for it. We have a LOT of stuff done with screens. By a lot, I mean just slightly under 200,000 per year.

We've been looking at DTG options, for many of our time sensitive designs, as a bridge to the screen printed version. Along with that, we'd also like to expand into a cafepress or zazzle model of "one offs". (I hope I didn't break any rules by mentioning those companies-- I did, just so that people could understand the business model).

I've been to the shows, and seen all the printers, on multiple occasions...

I can't think that there is any other choice besides the Kornit, for hundreds of small-run jobs per year, TO GO ALONG WITH one off designs from the internet.

T-shirts are not our main business, either. So this is purely an investment to speed up turn-arounds on small-runs as well as expand us into the internet submission model.

Lastly, I'll say that I've had about enough from our Epson 4800, which we use for sublimation. You can't sell me on those print heads...

Can anyone tell me why I SHOULDN'T get the Kornit?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!!!

splathead · January 26th, 2009

If you have done a lot of reading on this forum, then you know what you are getting into. Some love the Kornit, some hate it. Reliability seems to be an issue.

Have you looked at the new brother? 1/2 the price.

derailed34 · January 26th, 2009

Joe,

Thanks for the response. You're right, I've read all sorts of posts with the good and bad...with the learning curve. I looked at the Brother in Atlanta, during October...yes. I was saddened to hear that they didn't have the guts to put one of my designs on the printer, right there. Kornit was the only manufacturer who'd do that. What good does it do me to print a sample of my design and mail it to me?? That's ridiculous.

Also, I found their ink cost to be quite high.

I should also mention that we're going to be using this primarily on DARK shirts. The pre-treat was a little lacking, for my taste too.

But again, thanks! They're on my radar for sure!

Rodney · January 26th, 2009

Quote:


	What good does it do me to print a sample of my design and mail it to me??

I think to show you what type of prints you can expect from the machine, which is something that some buyers find helpful.

I think that for high volume, the 2 DTG machines that I've seen (in Atlanta and just in Long Beach) are the Kornit and new Brother.

DAGuide · January 26th, 2009

The only thing that I will add to the conversation is having one powerful machine does not always ensure that you are going to be successful. Since the O.P. mentioned Cafe Press and Zazzle, it is important to know that they are not relying on just one machine. There are some former Kornit owners that did rely on just one machine and ran into problems. It is my understanding that Cafe Press and Zazzle not only run multiple machines, but also different brands. Thus, if one printer goes down... there is a backup. So there is some validity to networking a bunch of smaller machines and production can carry on should a printer need to have maintenance done.

I agree that the Kornit is a good machine when you have the parameters figured out. However, I have talked to several Kornit owners and the parameters can vary from one shop to another. Things like temperature, humidity, controlling your air compressor / dryer and the specific locations of where the shirts are made (different looms and sizing chemicals can affect the wetting solution) can lead to changes in the parameters. Thus, you have to be willing to spend a lot of time understanding all of the factors and you are going to have to do test prints. The smart thing that Cafe Press and Zazzle does is that they don't offer the entire catalog of SanMar, Broder, Alpha, Anvil,... that I see the smaller companies do. They stick to a specific brand of shirts that they have run all their tests on and feel that they get the best results.

The ink price on the Kornit has always been a huge selling point for it. Recently though, the Dupont inks are selling for less than in the past. So the gap in price is becoming less. Both the Kornit and Epson based printers are known to use a lot of ink in maintenance, but the Brother is not. The jury is still out on the amount of ink used for maintenance on the Brother until they can get more machines out there.

Should be an interesting year as more printers come into the market. Good luck with your decision.

Mark

derailed34 · January 26th, 2009

I agree. However, if you're selling point is "minimal set-up", then you shouldn't be scared to throw something on your machine and see what comes out. That's the point I was making. An important selling point, for me, is how far away a RANDOM design is...from being print ready. If the quality is WAY off, with little or no set-up time, that's a red flag to me. I just wanted to see if the printers were in the ballpark. The Kornit was...based on output (with no tinkering)...and speed of print. Thank you for your help though...and I will surely keep that in mind as I go along.

derailed34 · January 26th, 2009

That's a great point...about zazzle and cafe. I would say that thankfully, we're not going to be relying on this machine as our only revenue stream. We're fortunately not in the same boat that many small shops are in...as we get into this. I think we've got the patience to get things worked out, but when they get worked out we need things to run quickly, with quality. I don't think you can associate "quick" with any of the cannabilized inkjet printers...so far.

Justin Walker · January 26th, 2009

You should take some more time, looking at ALL the machines that are available to you. What worries me the most, is your last statement, about quickness. This might surprise you, but there are Epson based machines out there that are faster than the 932 (DTG HM1, for instance). There is also a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE difference between taking a single design and having it printed at a show, and printing hundreds of unique one-offs each day in a production environment. You will quickly discover that, perhaps more than most other printers, the Kornit (in general) will require MORE prep time with the artwork, than mant other printers. When you factor in artwork adjustments (which, on the whole, cannot be completely automated if you want the best possible results), RIP adjustments and RIP time (depending on what RIP you use and how many products you offer, you could easily have a half dozen different RIP profiles that you would be using; ie, one for spot colors, one for over saturated colors, one for images with fade-to-shirt color effects, etc).

To get the most out of your Kornit printers, I would recommend some sort of automated software setup (Kornit offers some version of this, through another company, I believe; ask David B) to manage artwork files and such. Since each file is broken into 4-6 individual files after it is ripped, you need a way to quickly grab all of these separations, and drop them into the Hot Folder (or manually load them).

DAGuide · January 26th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by derailed34


	That's the point I was making. An important selling point, for me, is how far away a RANDOM design is...from being print ready. If the quality is WAY off, with little or no set-up time, that's a red flag to me. I just wanted to see if the printers were in the ballpark.

It sounds like you are asking all the right questions about all the printers that fit your business model. Just wanted to let you know that it can be more than just the printer: like the graphics, the shirt, the pretreatment process, the curing process, the environment,... Since you do several other decorating applications, you should been fine. Just set out enough time to really learn the printer and the process before you begin to sell it. Best wishes.

Mark

equipmentzone · January 26th, 2009

I would just like to point out, especially since you mentioned Zazzle as a company model you're looking to emulate, that they are running over 30 T-Jet Blazer Pro Printers at their location. For them, the Blazer Pro's seem to be what they have found to work best for the type of multiple short run printing that they do.

Harry

jim55912 · January 26th, 2009

Another thing to think about is who your "one off" customers are going to be. If you are dealing at arms length with the Joe public and are willing to let him take what he gets for quality, that is one thing. If you are going to do repeat business and build a relationship with your clients...well that is a different story.

Robert72 · January 26th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by equipmentzone


	I would just like to point out, especially since you mentioned Zazzle as a company model you're looking to emulate, that they are running over 30 T-Jet Blazer Pro Printers at their location. For them, the Blazer Pro's seem to be what they have found to work best for the type of multiple short run printing that they do. Harry

Hi Harry, do you know how they do the pretreatment??

Thanks,
Roberto.

mrbigjack50 · January 26th, 2009

DTG Eclipse? I never hear much talk about it but it suppose to be reallly fast and I think its 40 to 50 grand

derailed34 · January 27th, 2009

Justin,

I've read quite a bit of your story...at least the recent bits of it. Thanks for your response. I'm curious which machines you've found that have less set-up time on the front end. It was my experience, with every machine (I've got over a dozen samples from people who'd let me run my design, while I was standing there) that the output was pretty far from what you'd see on a monitor anyway. Add that fact to the actual print time of the shirt...and I'm then trying to justify to my boss why we wasted even $12K on a smaller setup. Strangely with a larger investment, I'm going to have more time to get it to work...I guess that's where I'm coming from. As I said, we're in the unique position of being able to enter this business of our own accord...because we believe there's some opportunity...we're not fighting competition for market share. I'd be interested to hear any further comments though...

derailed34 · January 27th, 2009

Mark,

Thanks also for that post. Fortunately, our organization already has a graphic design team, which is going to be a big help with tinkering. We've got a space that's as climate controlled as can be. I think what's going to really help us is that we're going to be moving very slowly into the one-off market...building on our base of regular customers. Where we're going to be able to do our learning, is with small runs of shirts that we actually sell in a brick-and-mortar store. It is going to add flexibility, and give us the chance to learn the ins-and-outs of tweaking the one offs.

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